Gifts
by Pearl Took
Summary: Why are some Took children wandering outside in thunderstorms?


Gifts

Gifts

The young hobbit lass crept silently out the window of her bedroom. She nearly fell when a flash of lightening startled her, but she quickly regained herself, slipping down to land on her feet in the flower bed below the window. She ran with the wind of the storm behind her to the small clearing at the head of the lane that led to their farm from the main road. There was a small copse there with a small pond and a bit of open space in the midst of it.

She should be safe there.

Esmeralda knew that you don't go out into the middle of an open field in a thunderstorm. You don't go stand under a lone tree in the middle of an open field in a thunderstorm. And you especially didn't go stand on the top of the small rise to the west of the house in a thunderstorm. Lightning liked to strike in those sort of places.

But no one had ever said anything about the copse.

No, she decided the only really dangerous part would be the long run down the open lane of the Took's Whitwell Farm; she also decided it was a risk she would take. Esmeralda laughed to herself as she ran. She was the risk taker, the wild child, of Adalgrim Took's family. Flying on the fierce breath of the storm, her feet barely feeling the ground beneath them, soaked to the skin through her thin robe and night gown, she knew she was different than the rest of them. When stories were told of daring adventures, she wanted to be in the story, and as far back in her young life as she could recall, she wanted to be a wizard like old Gandalf. A female hobbit wizard with helpful magic words and a magic staff for doing good things.

She wanted to be a person with powers, and thunderstorms had more power than anything else in her world.

The thin ring of trees did not block all of the wind, they only took the sting out of it as she tiptoed through them to the wide, sandy bank that made up the south edge of the small pond. The wind was from the north so that it was nearly as strong in that open place as it had been out on the lane.

Esmeralda stood out of the cover of the trees, yet not at the edge of the pond, for that was another rule of thunderstorms: you are not to be in or near the water in a thunderstorm. She breathed deeply of the storm-charged air then slowly raised her arms before her.

"I am the Hobbit Wizardess Esmeralda!" she intoned. "You will give unto me some of your power, mighty storm."

The sky burst into glaring light. Immediately the thunder roared. A tree somewhere cracked and broke apart. The lass stood firm. She thought of the storm her Cousin Bilbo described from his adventure; the storm that caused them to take shelter in a cave that led into the Goblin realm.

"Up in those mountains, the storms aren't like they are here," the old hobbit said eerily. "You're nearer to the sky in the mountains, you see. There *the lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks shiver, and great crashes split the air and go rolling and tumbling into every cave and hollow; and the darkness is filled with overwhelming noise and sudden light.*"

But there were no Goblins in The Shire, and she was not hiding in a cave, so Esmeralda felt no fear at the storm's fury.

"You will give unto me some of your power, mighty storm!"

There was a blinding flash and she saw herself, standing high upon a hill top. She wore flowing green robes and bore a staff in her left hand. It lay across her chest. Slowly, she drew the head of the staff from her right to her left and a vision bloomed before her.

She saw a dear friend of hers, Maybelle.

"They have all lied, Esmeralda!" her friend bitterly wept. "Everyone believes them. You will see. At Peridot's birthday party, no one will talk to me. I'll be all alone!"

Esmeralda drew her friend close. "No," she whispered. "I will be with you. You won't be alone. And I'll ask Paladin to be with us as much as he can. He's a good egg. He will be with us too. He will most likely even ask you to dance with him. You won't be alone, Maybelle."

The vision shimmered.

"I'll stay here with you, Paladin."

"No, Esme. You go have fun at the party. I'm the one as dumped this grain all over the tack room floor, I'm the one who needs to clean it up." Her brother's shoulders slumped as he moved to get the straight-edged grain shovel and the large dustpan.

Esme hurried ahead of him to get the dustpan before he did. Paladin reached for it but she danced away with it held as far from him as she could get it.

"No, no, Paladin Took!" His sister smiled while shaking her finger at him. "I shall hold the dustpan for you to shovel against and I'll hold it when you get the floor broom and sweep up all that the shovel won't catch."

"But, Esme . . . the party."

She set her forefinger over his lips. "I would rather help you."

A breeze blew the moment away.

She was in a darkened room. A large room that seemed vaguely familiar. Saradoc Brandybuck, looking quite old, was pacing before a hearth in which a feeble fire burned.

"Esme, I think I did the wrong thing. Even with all my plans and schemes people are still hungry and being chased from their homes. I can feel the mood of the Bucklanders turning against me."

She rose to her feet and embraced him, though the part of her watching the scene didn't know why she would be doing that. The Esme that was watching barely knew Saradoc, who was, after all, four years younger than her.

"I have not, nor shall I ever turn against you," she heard herself say. "We will see this through together. I do not think the feelings of the Bucklanders are as bad as you think."

She could feel the weary sigh leave him as he relaxed against her.

Thunder roared. Lightening lit the copse. A voice was on the wind.

"Your magic is loyalty. You do not forsake kith nor kin. Because of this many will owe their happiness, their comfort, their lives to you. But you will not seek their praise and gratitude. You will not see anything beyond that you were loyal to your friends and family, and that is the only way you know to be."

A blue-white bolt hit the surface of the small pond. Esmeralda slumped to the ground. She awoke only a few moments later, stood to her feet, then made her slow and dizzy way back to the house. Her mother found her asleep at the kitchen table the next morning, her hair and clothing damp and smelling somewhat singed. Esmeralda was sent to bed for the rest of the day. Her mother could not understand her youngest daughter.

*********************************************

The young hobbit lad crept silently out the window of his bedroom. Oh, how he wished his cousin Merry was here . . . but then again . . .

"No," Pippin muttered to himself. "Merry would only talk me out of this. He wouldn't understand."

He slid agilely down and took off running toward the rise to the west of the house, at the edge of the farmyard. The wind whipped his hair into his mouth and eyes, his nightshirt was so wet and tight against him that it looked as though his skin had odd wrinkles in it. The lightening cracked and a while later, the thunder answered.

He started up the small hill.

Mind you, he knew the rules about thunderstorms. He knew the rise was not an approved place to stand during a thunderstorm. Pippin simply didn't care. He knew, from past experience, that there was no better place on Whitwell Farm to watch all manner of weather than the top of the hill to the west of the house.

He just hoped no one decided to look out of any of the west-facing windows.

Pippin stopped upon the very highest point of the rise, leaning his hands on his knees while he caught his breath. The wind buffeted him. The rain stung. His ears rang a little from the deafening roar of the thunder. He smiled. There was nowhere else in all of Middle-earth that he wanted to be.

He straightened up, took a deep breath and raised up his arms.

"This had better work this time," he thought irritably. "The other five times nothing happened and two of those times I got caught sneaking back in and got punished."

Pippin closed his eyes, reaching a little harder until he could feel the pull in his finger tips. "I am Peregrin Took! By my name I am destined to be a mighty adventurer. I will know the ways of the beasts, the look of all the plants, and I will have within me the power of the storms of the skies."

The wind screamed. He heard something behind him fall with a crash.

"Just like Bilbo's mountain storm," he thought with a mischievous chuckle.

"*The lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks shiver*, just like Bilbo said!" Pippin cried out. "*Great crashes split the air and go rolling and tumbling into every cave and hollow; and the darkness is filled with overwhelming noise and sudden light*. But I will fear no storm! I will suck all your noise, wind and light into me!"

For a moment, the small hobbit lad couldn't see, nor hear, nor feel.

"I've not heard Pimpernel laugh in days! Not since her pony died." Eglantine Took's voice swirled in his head, then, he could see his mother as well as hear her. "Look, Paladin! She's laughing!"

His father laughed as well. "Who wouldn't laugh at the lad's antics?

Pippin saw himself. His shirt was tied by its sleeves around his head. His braces were wrapped around his waist and between his legs. He had circles like a dartboard or archery target drawn on his chest and he was hanging upside down by his knees from a tree.

"Come on then, Nell! Try to knock the squirrel out of the tree! There's a nice pile of acorns for you to pelt him with at the base of the tree over there." He yelled, then began making chattering noises.

In between laughing, Nell managed to gasp out. "I can't. I'm . . . laughing too hard."

Leaves fell in a rush around them.

He saw a room. It was the parlor at Bag End.

"And that, my dear cousins, is why Tobias Took never again used the privy out behind the Horse and Wagon Inn in Whitwell!"

This was followed by applause and hearty laughter.

"Ah, Pippin lad!" Frodo exclaimed. "You truly know how to distract a person's mind from their aches. I do believe I've not had so much as a twinge in my twisted ankle the whole time you've been telling tales."

"That is only because his prattle numbs the senses, Frodo," Merry said with a wink of the eye and a finger along side of his nose.

"You're right with that, Mister Merry!" Sam said with a wink of his own.

"Well," Pippin heard himself say with mock offense, "if I'm not wanted here, I can go."

"Don't you dare!" Frodo exclaimed. "Send these two away, if someone need go. I want more stories."

Pippin bowed with a flourish. "Your wish is law, oh incapacitated one."

With a puff of smoke from Frodo's pipe the scene was gone.

The smoke formed a mist, pale lit as if by moon light. The air around him carried a foul stench and dark menacing shapes just ahead of him vanished into the fog. He knew he had to do something. He ran to one side then dove to land sprawled in the damp grass.

"**No hope of escape!**" he heard his own thoughts say. "**But there is a hope that I have left some of my own marks unspoilt on the wet ground.**"

He felt his hands fumbling with something at his throat, then he let that something fall as he was roughly jerked upwards.

He didn't know why, but he felt good about what had just happened.

He felt his head spin. The darkness burst into brilliance. The air rang with a voice.

"Your magic is hope and cheerfulness. With these you will change the course of many things. With these you will strengthen those around you. With these, even poor judgement on your part will find a way to be of use."

Lightening burned a hole into the ground at the base of the small hill with a horrible crackling noise. Paladin Took, wrapped in a robe that did nothing to keep out the driving rain, went out to see if his home or farm buildings had been hit. Another flash showed him a figure in white laying upon the hill. His parents were too grateful to find Pippin alive to punish him too badly, although he did get a cold that kept him in the house for a week and that was punishment enough.

Faramir Took could not resist the urge to go outside in the storm . . .

A/N: * Marks my challenge quote which is from the chapter "Over Hill and Under Hill"  
in "The Hobbit"  
** Marks quotes from the chapter "The Uruk-Hai" in "The Two Towers.


End file.
